Pedantic Snippet

A pragmatist will not believe there are flowers unless they make him flower.

Haiku

When insight is born
Designs of the world collapse
- To create puzzles!

The Rubaiyat

Alas! Teapot cracks and the tea is free
I'm not from the habit of drinking tea
Caffeine ties the knot of my happiness
By giving me its keys to sanctity.

Gentlemen by the Pillars

Have you imagined what it would be like
To cross a river without a bridge?
All you have is a pair of legs and will
You can walk on the thread of thin air
If you choose to have nothing to lose
Then you will find the air comforting you
You will have the birds welcoming you
A breath of fresh air is what you will get
It might seem a trifle maddening
But that is not the end of the river;
Madness is just a means to the finish
If you are clear about your goals
You will not choose to fly;
If you are unclear where to start
You have a glimmer of hope.
Trust me, you do not know these gentlemen
They are by the pillars across the thread
Mimicking the dangers of wonderland
You will not lose sight of them
Just because you choose to be wise.

Limerick

If you get the fruits of fallen trees
You may need to call a Mr.breeze
Seek an appointment
Meet disappointment
The Cold isn't easiest to please.

Pedantic Snippet

Roads are many but destinations are few - without planning.

The Pathological Controversy of Super Sanity

It has been a challenge to define sanity. The reasons arise out of the impulse to be guided by a range of what the prevailing era considers normal. While the range is broad it may still not be broad enough. The question then arises as to how much is broad enough. This question is answered conveniently on many occasions. The convenience in contention is largely determined by certain accepted norms so that the definition of sanity becomes somewhat truncated. At this point a circle is drawn which acts almost like a forcefield preventing strong deviations from accepted patterns of behavior from entering the designation of acceptance and hence they are not considered sane.

Although sanity is a drawn range, it seems to grow depending on a notion of collective- acceptance. When one talks about sanity one cannot help delving into the realm of perspectivism. This means that we may have different perspectives and act according to those perspectives but they are accepted as long as they do not cross the circle of normalcy or the broad range of sanity. It would then imply that what was not normal at one point may become normal if the circle expands and the range broadens. While this is convenient and makes life simple for the ones who fit into the circle, it can be limiting as collective acceptance is still subject to evolution. You cannot determine with convenience clearly if the range has fully evolved or not. As far as evolution is concerned, convenience is not a matter of relevance.

One then embarks on the possibility of super sanity which is a layer where there are only visual fields and no sensational impacts on the person who is super-sane. One often discovers that there is nothing more cured and one is dropped in the well of motivational despair. When this happens one becomes a subject of what is called the pathological controversy of super-sanity. It becomes impossible to 'cure' or 'correct' any thought-process that is considered to be incorrect purely because it is only a matter of consideration. Remember, from the blurring of the judgement abnormal, we have been made to suspend our judgement of what is correct and incorrect. You may start coining jargons, labels and phrases that may have a medical significance but they may not necessarily have absolute significance. If this is the case, then the whole circle is blown outside its field of relevance absorbing even the labeller into the well of 'motivational despair'. Just imagine, when there are only visual fields or perspectives that have no absolute relevance, what would happen to your inbuilt schema of what you consider as normal? Then the therapist is cured by his client on account of his condition or state of super sanity.

Zen

Sharp as a sword
A child can point out flaws
In rusty reason.

Zen

Old tree in the morn
Longs to feel night of moon
But dies before noon.

An Empty Vessel that Never makes Noise

You are too empty for me to see
Oh skies clear-off your clouds of confusion
Clear is too pristine to understand
You have to be with me before you last
Some creations give you company
But only for a while till they rest
Then all comes down the clouds go up
Begins the fever of separation
Nothing can eclipse you dear skies
You give space for beings of flight
'Now' is the time for you to find your space.

Endangered Chimney - A Smoke in the Sea

Smoking alone in the haze
Laughing to himself
Climbing the ladder of ozone
He falls down with no regrets.

Choking from feverish pleasures
Singing with a broken voice
Giving himself due audience
He has no need of mirrors.

Realizing trips are healthy dreams
Forgetting importance men enjoy
Death is too old for him to fear;
He falls into indifference.

Without him I become
-A smoke in the sea.

Zen

Hills of the tide
Crumble before my eyesight
-Losing vision.

Haiku

Commands the empty lamp
The light to fires sublime
Through threads of darkness.

Poetic Victory in Longfellow’s A Psalm of Life

There are numerous ways by which a poet translates his feelings of spontaneity to mirror the cocktail of life’s diversity. This he does by virtue of his private experiences. What he feels of life from the depth of his being he carves with the instrument of thought. Most people find it quite hard to bring out the creative impulse in them. Those who manage to do so, express the creative instinct in different forms. Poetry is one such form. This dimension of human thought excites critics as they work their way towards analyzing poems.

‘A Psalm of Life’ describes the spirit of the title in relation to its semantic meaning. Psalm literally means a sacred hymn and this title of the poem might have been chosen to convey the poet’s feeling of that which he considers the sacred hymn of life. The poem expresses completely the need to develop a frame of mind which is needed to live a life! The emphasis is on attitude.

The poem follows a steady rhyme scheme. It is closer to a song than to a complicated play of words. This quality precisely gives it the label of a lyric.

The poet begins by saying that life is as good as an empty dream if it is spent in sleep without action. Reality he says is deceptive in appearance. While imagination is wonderful it does not always find the desired compatibility with reality. Reality as explained earlier mystifies us in this manner.

Life according to him is real only when it is lived. Mere existence is not the key. He expresses with clarity the point of death not being the goal of life.

“And the grave is not its goal”.

He strongly opines that the soul or the real life does in no way appreciate the so called fact that man is dust and to dust he will return. He highlights the famous principle about action being the insignia of life. Our destiny and way of life are not purely for enjoyment or sorrow but action. He claims that only action will take us to a more firmly constructed tomorrow than today. It is only action that will enrich our experiences for a better life.

Art to him has a long life. He compares art with time which fleets like the wind. Our hearts beat and life goes on till we meet our grave. Art and time are beyond life and existence. By themselves they are not tangible but only in forms. We, on the other hand, with our bodies and hearts have a shorter life than both art and time. We need to make use of the shorter life that we have in order to grasp the importance and significance of both time and art.

In the battle of life, the poet wants man to be a hero in the struggle for a good life. He has not been predisposed to being one among the many. It no doubt is easy to follow. Man’s apprehensions are enough to make him a follower. It takes a lot more to be a leader. This is what the poet conveys.

“be a hero in the strife!”

The poet does not desire a form of life in which man only thinks of the future. There is absolutely no point in just hoping and dreaming away. He wants man not to dream or think of the future no matter how pleasant .The line ‘Trust no future, howe’er pleasant!’ could also mean that even if a pleasant future is predicted one should not trust it. The past to him is a wasteland that is gone or dead. Nobody can get back his/her past. Therefore only the present matters as only the present exists. We can live in the present only by acting in the present. With the heart of love, action by efforts and God above, he feels that acting in the living present will be re-enforced.

Just like how great men have made life thrilling and worth living we can do the same. In the process when we exit from the world, we leave with the satisfaction that we have contributed to it in some form or the other thereby living in memories of time.

A dejected and lonely man in his journey of life will take heart from the lives of great men that have gone by. He will receive renewed energy and hope and will act on the foundation of attitude laid down by us.

The poet wishes that we give up our obsessions with fate. He wants us to work and act with perseverance, tenacity and motivation constantly in pursuit of achievement.

Along with efforts, patience is also needed to keep our efforts going without failing in our duties.

This poem quite obviously advocates a type of philosophy not new to most people. It is extremely difficult to be true to this kind of philosophy for the pressures exerted on us by external and internal circumstances. Philosophies are also conveyed through poetry in the hope that in some way, words of wisdom sink into the sub-conscious mind. A poem with a positive message like the one by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow is expected to transmit positive signals to the reader. Many, on the other hand, read it for its explicit quality of style, elegance and its easy flow. This shows the various ways by which poetry can be far-reaching. It isn’t just an object of cross-examination. The meter, rhythm and eloquence give it a natural advantage over other arts to spread the message to be conveyed with artistic clarity.

Duty and detachment, action and perseverance are words of wisdom which may tire the reader with a kind of theoretical sublimity difficult in actual life. ‘A Psalm of Life’

is definitely a Psalm of life as it has all the attributes necessary to make it one.

This poem can to a large extent make a huge difference to one’s life provided it is read clearly and taught inspiringly. Albeit a poem is a poem and it is too much to expect it to change an individual radically. While it is only a possibility it cannot guarantee certainty of radical transformation. Change is probably a gradual phenomenon. In general, it has been observed that poems or epigrams display an alarming disparity between thought and action. Taking into account all these considerations, it is most essential for a poem to be admired for its poetic beauty rather then weighing it in terms of practical value.

If a poem can change an individual’s life it has served to its credit a philosophical purpose. If it cannot make any impression of this kind it still remains a poem.

Poetry wins either way.

By Ajay Seshadri

Leverage

Beauty died the day it was sold
Money is everywhere behold
The heart has turned truly cold
Exhausted is human soul.

A Hypnagogic Hallucination

I tried sleeping with the lights on

Managing to doze off in my couch

Undisturbed by the sounds outside

Who would know when I am aroused?

When I surpass and transcend

All conscious states in line

No noise in my head

I’m one with my sign

What is this sign that I talk of?

In union with a serpentine spirit

Am I sleeping into another world?

In a world of forestry

Everything I see is green

So is my life within

What I’ve been seeking all along

Is a deep silence within

That when I have found

for no more than a second

escapes my mind like a penance

I’m no longer exactly asleep

Only in this vacant spot

The soul can begin to rise

When in leisure my mind

Is still and observant

Of what goes on within

I am made vigilant

For I notice someone waiving

To me quasi mysteriously

Is he alive or am I awake?

Am I to believe what I see?

I wake up and shudder

To real eyes where my dreams

Were seen as bigotry

A fault in consciousness

Where ‘real’ life could be a dream.

A Fond Deluge

An elephant can never utter a word

When it is on the wheels upon a table

The difference is the same as it would be

If the elephant were to be alone in a jungle.

The wild hacker isn’t a mob as the crows say so

You would see no such attack in apathy;

The wild hacker is the one who writes a fable

And makes you believe it through empathy.

You may try to force the elephant out

But I warn you no speech works without sense;

The elephant will not budge if you will

The electrical activity is at your expense.

You may try to master force and friction,

There’s an angel holding on to a mammal;

No one escapes hurt through smiles

Unless you wish to be the tamed animal.

Haiku

The world on a screen,

Making of reality;

Which one is the dream?